15 minutes ago, Chris Gundleton said:

Nothing more Poch could do.  Better striker who can take chances and we would have won the League Cup and be in the FA Cup final…..

I think what also gets overlooked is that not only does Jackson use up our few opportunities with his appalling finishing, it also sucks all the energy and confidence out of the rest of the team. It gets to point where the rest of the team start losing belief.

Jacko shudda Keith Houtchen-ed that headed chance. Pussy

12 minutes ago, mojo said:

very rearly do this but these need to be here

 

 

Was he onside for the first one?

 

Anyways my goodness. Does not shoot the first one, passes back the second then that header just needs guiding in to the far corner.

Terrible play. He did not but you would be hard pressed to say he did not mess up on purpose.

9 minutes ago, abister1 said:

The point is that no one is perfect, not even Pep whose achilles heels was over complicating or over thinking things and making a muddle of it all at the final stages of cup competitions. 

Over the last two seasons he seems to have gradually come out of that weakness. 

In all the big games we have played this season, we have never felt like oh they absolutely battered us. More like we should have won or won more if we didn't get let down by the players. 

If Poch was 100% ever aspect, he wouldn't be our manager. I backed him before he was appointed, have been frustrated by his game management and said once maybe he shouldn't be our manager if he can't manage games properly but when I shorn all emotions and rationally analyse things, he's done well with all he's had to deal with especially with a team that most of them are first time in the EPL and have not even come from teams outside the league that have been known as serial or sure winners. 

There's a reason why managers like Mourinho and Conte want experienced players. Clue.... They won't do a Jackson or Disasi. 

Pep and even Klopp can manage kids but they still mix it up with experienced heads. The owners hamstrung us in that way. At least short term. Long term, it will work but they ignored short term which a club like Chelsea also need to pay attention to. 

I agree with some of your points and even though I personally don't think Poch is the right man for the job long term, he hasn't been worse than our last couple of managers and has had to deal with an overwhelming amount of injuries. However, my main point is that Poch has done this too many times this season and having a better stronger squad isnt going to change that. Say we had a better striker than Jackson and he puts one of the chances he got away, we still end up conceding a late equalizer because of poor in game reaction to a tactical change by Pep. I'm not saying Poch needs to be perfect but a simply reaction to a tactical change that is clrealy favouring City isn't asking for much

28 minutes ago, abigsmurf said:

Jackson needs to leave, he's terrible and his attitude stinks. Yet another case of conceding right after the manager makes a chance. how many times does he need to get it into his thick skull that you don't make late defensive changes?

The lack of a handball penalty was just comical. Just what you'd expect by a ref who'd been paid huge amounts of money by City's owners.

If the ref has really been " paid huge amounts of money by City's owners" then we can't really blame our players or Poch for the result can we ?

Just now, axman2526 said:

Was he onside for the first one?

 

Anyways my goodness. Does not shoot the first one, passes back the second then that header just needs guiding in to the far corner.

Terrible play. He did not but you would be hard pressed to say he did not mess up on purpose.

yep - onside, was in our own half when the ball was played.

Ah well we did our best. Onwards and upwards eh? Arse Tuesday. Til thenUp the Chelsea. Toodle pip all 

Gutted..

The team worked its nuts off today, we pressed well, restricted them to few clear cut chances, and counter attacked with pace.....

Then there was Jackson.. He will NEVER be a top striker EVER,  Harlaand, Palmer, Foden are all young but still have that something that makes a top striker.

Also none of them are petulant brats, which Jackson most certainly is.

I want him and Poch in the same taxi out of the bridge at the end of the season.

3 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

I agree with some of your points and even though I personally don't think Poch is the right man for the job long term, he hasn't been worse than our last couple of managers and has had to deal with an overwhelming amount of injuries. However, my main point is that Poch has done this too many times this season and having a better stronger squad isnt going to change that. Say we had a better striker than Jackson and he puts one of the chances he got away, we still end up conceding a late equalizer because of poor in game reaction to a tactical change by Pep. I'm not saying Poch needs to be perfect but a simply reaction to a tactical change that is clrealy favouring City isn't asking for much

I'm not saying he is the right man for us long term but when he was appointed, I looked at our squad and managers available. He was the best for the team in my opinion. 

However this was only to get us back in the top 6 and get the boys used to this level of football. His contract of two seasons is perfect for this as we should start looking for his replacement at the end of next season from now. 

Madueke laughing and joking right after the final whistle with Grealish worse than the Jackson misses, and this is right after penalty-gate. As much as I usually roll my eyes at the ‘attitude’ discourse and prefer to look at how we’re setup, this guy isn’t destined for the big time. He’s a Nottingham Forest / Brentford player, preordained in the DNA; horrifying to know we’re stuck with him.

41 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Our preferred starting 11 turns to sh*t? I don't think you have noticed, but that starting 11 with Gallagher in midfield has been sh*t pretty much all season. The Everton game is the only game all season where it worked without any flaws.

If Jackson takes his chances today, you wouldn't be complaining about the midfield.

Come on, Conor as an 8 is a massive improvement to Conor on the wing. 

Thought we played ok if we actually had a competent striker we probably win this.

Ridiculous 'refereeing' by England's most overrated referee. Not bent like Taylor, just incompetent and biased towards northern teams. If we had a proper striker, we would have won that based on the chances created. Jackson shows skill in turning a marker and has good pace but his finishing is abysmal. Madueke very similar - a better finisher but less involved. Fernandez continues to disappoint.  The 'Brighton players' are looking better.

Like a few have said though overall the display sounded good, just did not take our chances.

On the upside we don't have to watch us lose another final at Wembley this year either. Silver lining  :)

Hindsight is always 20/20 but I accepted that we won't win this about 15 minutes into the game, no matter how well we played. Our team is too young and inexperienced for occasions like this and they looked a bit struck by the magnitude of the game, whereas for City it was the less important of their two games this week. We really need players who have seen a decent amount of football to get a result from semi-finals and finals and the ones in our squad with that level of experience are either injured or off form.

 

We played well enough and were easily the team with more and better chances but that counts for nothing when you can't put them away or find the final pass.

Back from the game. Good atmosphere and City support is really sh*t. We got them on a bad day and couldn’t finish them off to save our lives. First half was very tactical from both sides. Surprisingly, we came on quite tuned in on the second half and should have beaten them. We can say that the best team lost today. Still, I’m not sure what Pochettino does changing the line up. Palmer was quite ineffective and Gallagher nowhere to be seen because of the tinkering. But, if it wasn’t for Jackson shocking finishing, we’d easily have won it. That was the difference between them and us today.

They played extra time and penalties just a couple of days ago, we really should have seen through them eventually when they start to tire out.

How they controlled the match during injury time was really painful to watch. They should have been under intense pressure, we should have threw everything at them but for 6 minutes out of 8 we were chasing shadows. Pathetic.

Another failure at Wembley. We're sh*t.

3 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

They played extra time and penalties just a couple of days ago, we really should have seen through them eventually when they start to tire out.

How they controlled the match during injury time was really painful to watch. They should have been under intense pressure, we should have threw everything at them but for 6 minutes out of 8 we were chasing shadows. Pathetic.

That’s also quite true. They played 120 minutes on Wednesday and they didn’t look very much tired in comparison to us. Are they on hard drugs or is our training that sh*t?

40 minutes ago, Term_X said:

Madueke laughing and joking right after the final whistle with Grealish worse than the Jackson misses, and this is right after penalty-gate. As much as I usually roll my eyes at the ‘attitude’ discourse and prefer to look at how we’re setup, this guy isn’t destined for the big time. He’s a Nottingham Forest / Brentford player, preordained in the DNA; horrifying to know we’re stuck with him.

Brentford and Forest have both beaten us at The Bridge this season if I'm not mistaken .

Is he good enough to make it with those clubs ?

4 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

They played extra time and penalties just a couple of days ago, we really should have seen through them eventually when they start to tire out.

How they controlled the match during injury time was really painful to watch. They should have been under intense pressure, we should have threw everything at them but for 6 minutes out of 8 we were chasing shadows. Pathetic.

It was the same at the end of the first half. We had a chance to create one more chance, but we slowly passed it around and the ref blew for half time. There was only enough time for one more attack, so if we had lost possession, the ref would have blown anyway, so I don't know why we didn't try to force it......well actually I do, it's because there is only one player in the whole squad that seems up for taking responsibility, Palmer. The rest just pass it to the other guy, who passes it to that guy, who then passes it to that guy. These players need to take risks and stop hiding.

2 minutes ago, carrickblue said:

Another failure at Wembley. We're sh*t.

No Carrick, the narrative for some is that the ref was paid off by the Citeh owners.

So technically we won

🏆😜.

6 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

No Carrick, the narrative for some is that the ref was paid off by the Citeh owners.

So technically we won

🏆😜.

Highly plausible, not. I think we're jinxed at Wembley feels like we'll never win there again 

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

I think laughing at this is all I can do ... 

Our boy has set himself some new standards today 🙂

well, he didn'want to pass to Cole and was cursing at Enzo as well. yeah new standards, very well said

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Was he onside for the first one?

 

Anyways my goodness. Does not shoot the first one, passes back the second then that header just needs guiding in to the far corner.

Terrible play. He did not but you would be hard pressed to say he did not mess up on purpose.

no

 

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

I think what also gets overlooked is that not only does Jackson use up our few opportunities with his appalling finishing, it also sucks all the energy and confidence out of the rest of the team. It gets to point where the rest of the team start losing belief.

Very good point. Totally agree.